It is sometimes desirable to treat disorders in patients using implantable electrical stimulation leads. For example, it is known to treat the adverse effects of neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy, and most recently, to rehabilitate stroke patients, by electrically stimulating the motor/pre-motor regions of the patient's cortical brain tissue with one or more paddle-like stimulation leads. Access to the patient's brain is accomplished using a fairly invasive procedure, which involves either drilling multiple burr holes through the patient's cranium or performing a craniotomy on the patient.
If a craniotomy is the selected means for accessing the patient's brain, the stimulation leads are merely inserted through the large opening in the cranium and placed into their proper positions along the cortex. The portion of the patient's cranium that was removed during the craniotomy is then placed back and secured within its original position in the cranium.
If burr holes are the selected means for accessing the patient's brain, each stimulation lead is inserted through one of the burr holes and advanced towards another burr hole. A medical implement is inserted into the other burr hole and used to pull or otherwise manipulate the lead into proper position along the cortex. Although the use of burr holes is generally less invasive than a craniotomy, the size of burr holes are still relatively large—typically around 15 mm in diameter, in order to accommodate the high-profile paddle-like leads and medical implements.
There, thus, remains a need to provide improved methods and kits for delivering electrodes leads within a patient's head between the cranium and cortical brain tissue of the patient.